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Beat the Streak Report: Monday, May 24

The calendar is about to reach June and the highest streak we have right now is 24 games.

Not that getting to 24 isn’t a stellar accomplishment, but come on people! Does anybody want to win $3,000,000?

I know this game takes incredible patience and a tiny bit of research but we’re not trying to solve Good Will Hunting math problems or attempting to put together one of those exile puzzles from Fresh Meat II here; it’s baseball for crying out loud!

Sincerely,

Expert guy who only has a three-game streak right now.

Time for Monday’s picks …and there’s only four games. This should be a doozy

“postbud32″ is enjoying his/her 15 minutes of fame atop the leaderboard with a 24-game streak and is officially 42.1 percent on the way to buying as many KFC Double Down sandwiches he could ever dream of.

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We’re now 50 games in to the season. I have some ‘off-the-wall’ things I track about beat the streak, so I figured I would share. I’d love to know more about others ‘standard percentage of picks correct’.

In 50 games…..

I have picked a player who has gotten a hit 40 times
I have picked a player who has gone 0-fer 8 times
I have picked a player who did not play twice

A record of 40-8-2 translates to an 83.3 percent ‘winning percentage’ (discounting the two DNPs and considering the record 40-8).

I have picked Ichiro 13 times. 12 of those times, he has come through. For the season, Ichiro has 35 games with hits, 9 games without hits, and 6 off nights (including opening night when only the Yankees and RedSox were playing). As near as I can tell, picking Ichiro on any given day – regardless of who is pitching – has about an 80% success rate.

Last year, I tracked Ichiro as long as I particpated in the contest (which was when I lost a 20-game hit streak on August 28 and was mathematically eliminated from winning a prize). Until that point, Ichiro was performing at an 89 percent success clip, which included a 27-game hitting streak that was snapped on June 5).

I managed to hit .363 in April and get a .350 trophy. Even though I am 14 correct of my last 15, with Choo screwing up a 10-gamer last Thursday and now having a 4-gamer, I am still only hitting .310 in May. It would be neat to have a .400 month one of these months.

On the other hand, I am 0-for-2 picking Johnny Damon. He has been on hiatus indefinitely since May 3.

I’ve only had one back to back 0-fer, May 7 and 8.

If you look at the top 15 players selected every day, those players aggregate to a 73 percent win percentage. At least half of those players have been correct every day except for May 7, when 6 players got hits, 7 went 0-fer, and 2 did not get an official at-bat.

Love to hear about others win percentages. I am trying to figure out a ‘standard’ correct percentage – which helps me understand the likelihood of winning this game, and also helps me understand the ‘value’ of a particular entry. I’ll post more about that at a later post.

@champion_88 You can get that info from espn.com by clicking on mlb at the top and then teams and then roster and then the player. Scroll down the page and it’s there. Also you can get it on the MLB page by clicking on MLB Team Sites and then Roster and Active Roster and the player and it’s at the top right hand side of the page.

Only a ..667 winning percentage, which describes my weak 7-game high hit streak this season.

I have been fumbling pretty badly this season, probably my worst ever, which is wasting a great opportunity on the leaderboard, as this is the latest I have ever seen a 36-game hit streak hold up and hold up without challenge.

Part of my problem may be with trying to either get too specific or not specific enough, but I hope that, worst-case scenario, this season helps me refine my system, so that next year, I can start strong.

For example, I have only picked Ichiro twice so far, once yesterday and once on April 18th. I am 2 for 2 in Ichiro picks.

I was 34 for 107, .318 batting average in April.

I am a pathetic 15 for 73 in May or just a .205 batting average so far in May, but that the front 17 days of the month were primarily occupied by final exams and I only had only very limited time to look at the list of probables to make a pick each day.

From May 17th onward, I am 8 for 23 or a .348 batting average VS 7 for 50 or just a .140 batting average beforehand.

Try going to the MLB page and click on Stats at the top and then click on League Leaders. That may allow you to get what you want. Or, on that page you can see the previous days hottest performers and for the past 7 days. There is one more place, but that’s my little secret. Not really a secret as it didn’t help yesterday, but I may share that one later.

I’m 8 for my last 17 with 3 dnp. But in a double header I did get a hit in both games. I just haven’t been able to get a streak past 4 games ever since my highest ever of 10 (its my first year playing) got broken up earlier this year.

“Or, on that page you can see the previous days hottest performers and for the past 7 days.”

Yeah I have seen that, but there are 2 problems there:

1) I find that a 4 for 4 or 5 for 5 usually blows out the average way too strongly. Granted that is always going to be a problem, but I think the last 10 days is a good compromise between minimizing outliers, but still capturing recent trends well.

It is usually really difficult to hit very well over a full month and even if you have, it is even more unlikely that he is about ready to cool off.

2) I cannot get the thing to load. It says done, but nothing but the MLB background is displayed.

I think dragbunt was the one who posted the source for the last 10 days.

If you go to Yahoo! and click on MLB and then Players, you can get the player list. Select any given player, and you will be given the option to get his ‘Game log’. This will give you his performance season-to-date for every individual game this year.

I need another set of eyes on the above video. As Willingham approaches third base after hitting the walk-off, it looks like an O’s player “kicks up dirt” at Willingham as he is running by. Did an O’s player just do that or I’m I seeing things?? LOL!!!!

Champion88 – What’s interesting about your chart is the difference in odds between a 75% chance and an 80% chance.

If you consider Ichiro an 80% chance, or even having an 80% chance per day as being somewhat accurate, then the odds are 1 in 334,000. With the number of people who start streaks every day being independent events, if there really was an 80% chance every day, then the streak should be hit by now.

However, if there is a 75% chance per day, the odds of 1 in 13.2 million make it not so surprising that the streak hasn’t been hit yet.

It takes a chart like yours to demonstrate the humongous difference between 75% likelihood of success and 80% likelihood of success.

Gonna be a good day for most of the Top 2500 BTS players. With the 1st inning in the books in the 3 current games, 52% of the picks have a hit already. We’ll see what bearing the next 8 innings will have.

champion_88
My head is spinning after trying to figure out how hard it is to win this thing.
Your info about needing 10 days player stats is on MLB.com click on Player and put in the name. You get 10 day player performance, splits on home away etc and you can see the pitcher he will be facing.
or
Go to MLB.com and click on Stats and you will get the hitting, pitching stats. You can click on 7 days and get the best ML hitters for the past week.
Personally, I think 10 days is too long. I like 7 day info.

Could my jinx of getting reset when I pick same player as the BTS leader continue today? Hmmm.
Today: Leader & I picked Rios – reset potential (hurts less with a streak of zero)
Yesterday: Leader & I picked Padro – reset
May 19: Leader & I picked CarGonz – reset
May 17: Leader & I picked Utley – did’nt play. Leader got lucky :)
May 14: Leader & I picked Rios – reset
May 01: Leader & I picked Pedroia – reset
Apr 27: Leader & I picked Jeter – reset
These aren’t all of them. Sometimes there were more than 1 leader at the time, but one of them went down with me. May has been a horrid month; hoping June heats things up quite a bit!

Finally! Jinx may be broken!!!! Not only did I not get an 0-fer when picking same as Leader, Rios’ Home is the 1st time this year, my pick’s only hit came on last at bat. Prior to that, I just assumed hitless at 3 ABs, going 0-fer for the night. That’s how bad it’s been. But maybe this is a good omen. Fingers are crossed.

Tuesday:
Zobrist, Young, Morneau, Cantu, Nelson Cruz
KC pitcher Menche is hittable – leaning toward a Ranger.
Vlad Guerrero to go deep. I remember when Guerrero had a “cut’ shape and patrolled RF like he owned it. Now it does not appear that if his house was on fire that he could get up enough speed to get out of the house alive. He is heavy and slow to say the least.
Survivor – I post my pick as a warning to stay away from whoever I pick and it is the REDS.

“champion_88
My head is spinning after trying to figure out how hard it is to win this thing.
Your info about needing 10 days player stats is on MLB.com click on Player and put in the name. You get 10 day player performance, splits on home away etc and you can see the pitcher he will be facing.
or
Go to MLB.com and click on Stats and you will get the hitting, pitching stats. You can click on 7 days and get the best ML hitters for the past week.
Personally, I think 10 days is too long. I like 7 day info.”

Well I wanted all the ML hitters together for 10 days.

A good example is Andrew McCutchen of the Pirates. His 10 day average was .368, but if you subtracted his 5 for 5, he was only 9 for 33.

I can only imagine how much it might overblow only 7 days worth of data.

I said earlier today that Ortiz would be a sleeper for today and sure enough he came through yet again. I had McCutchen and I am at 2 now. I posted it yesterday’s blog about Ortiz because the new one wasn’t up yet. Tomorrow I have Jeter but may change it.

So, you picked 10 days out with pitchers/lineups not available, and don’t get reset, find yourself on Page 1, and you are looking for advice. Here’s a piece of advice: buy a lottery ticket, because you appear to be one very lucky individual.

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